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To watch the recording, click here.

“Greed Over Guilt,” my latest chamber piece and commission utilizing individual, video-based scrolling graphic scores, is premiering this Sunday, Sept. 5th at 7p PST as part of Impulse New Music Festival (INMF)!

INMF 2021

Sept. 5th, 7p PST

* FREE TO WATCH ONLINE *

How do I watch?

The YouTube link will be posted on Facebook and the concert will also be broadcast on the INMF homepage at www.impulse-festival.org.

 

“Greed Over Guilt” is made entirely of individualized scrolling video scores (of original graphic notation) for each instrumentalist. Each musician then interprets / improvises and reacts based on the instructions they’re given on screen.

Original cover art © 2021

The entire concert will feature 6 pieces from INMF’s Brightwork Fellowship as performed by the incredible Los Angeles based ensemble-in-residence, Brightwork New Music Ensemble: Sara Andon (Flute), Rachel Beetz (Flute), Phil O’Connor (Clarinet), Brian Walsh (Clarinet), Shalini Vijayan (Violin), Maggie Parkins (Cello), Aron Kallay (Piano), & Yuri Inoo (Percussion).

The program will feature:

Chase Chandler – ‘Greed over Guilt’
John Franek – ‘Siphonic Perforations’
Ryan McWilliams – ‘Sprezzatura (or sketches in carelessness)’
Sean X. Quinn – ‘with/out’ (Part one)
Benjamin Rieke – ‘Plastic Patterns’
Angela Elizabeth Slater – ‘To Know the Dark’

The YouTube link will be posted on Facebook and the concert will also be broadcast on the INMF homepage at www.impulse-festival.org.

Program Notes for “Greed Over Guilt”

Nursing is regarded as the most trusted profession in the world.1 Nurses are the backbone of our healthcare system. These facts have never been more apparent than in the last year and a half of the COVID-19 crisis.

“Greed Over Guilt” is meant to share the reality of what COVID nurses endure and the ways in which their hospitals provide them with support. All recited text in this performance is from recent, unedited email correspondence sent from a hospital’s administration to their nursing staff. The names of the hospital and the nurse I interviewed will remain anonymous.

In the midst of the pandemic, while hospitals continue to be understaffed and equipment shortages commonplace, these non-profit executives refuse to pay themselves any less than 14x nurse median salary. In 2020, at this particular hospital, the CEO publicly elected not to take their usual bonus of over $300k to show solidarity—yet, their salary was almost a million dollars with nearly $400k in other reportable compensation.2 In prior years, however, nurses in the US made a median salary of $71k, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.3

Over the course of this piece, the compositional structure roughly follows a“code blue” protocol: two-minute sections of saving the dying patient with 10-seconds of observation in between. With the help of my wife, a COVID ICU nurse, all machine alarms were created from scratch by myself and imitate sounds found in an intensive care unit. Each beep is specific to a particular call-to-action, simulating the sound world a nurse might experience for twelve hours during their one shift.

Sources

      • Gaines, Kathleen. “Nurses Ranked Most Trusted Profession 19 Years in a Row.” Nurse.org, 21 Jan. 2021, nurse.org/articles/nursing-ranked-most-honest-profession/. 
      • All non-profit organizations, including most hospitals, are legally mandated to provide tax information to the public but it is often difficult to find. 
      • Nightingale College; https://nightingale.edu/blog/nurse-salary-by-state/